This
seminar will investigate the emergence, reinforcement, and change of
social norms and institutions. We will examine self-organizing
solutions to dilemmas of resource management, observe the maintenance
of informal norms among California cattle ranchers, study the
demography of rules in formal organizations, and model the dynamics of
technology protocols and revolutionary political change. Our readings
draw from important work in Political Science, Anthropology, Economics,
and Law, as well as classic and contemporary sociological theory.